My name is Roseanne Carlos Stone, and I am a survivor. Over 30 years, I have been victimized by multiple sex crimes.

I, like countless others of you, have always hit a gray area, a depressing void in our legal system’s response where the victim's rights are lost in the shuffle.
Sexual assault and battery is a crime that can be classified as either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances.
In my opinion, any sex crimes are ALL the same crime: rape.
Why do I feel this way? Because there is one common factor in every single case: intent; the intention of the attacker. Every rape starts as an assault or battery of the body. It's no easy task to gain control over another individual such that you can do them harm. Whether it’s overpowering someone by physical force or chemical sedation, rape is always the intended goal of the attacker, first and foremost. The only factor that determines what happens next is a random set of circumstances (as in the preponderance of evidence).
All of us, the victim and the accused alike, do have rights. But a majority of the time the victim’s rights are ignored or dismissed in favor of those for the accused. Victims should be treated with the utmost respect for the violation that they have just endured and will have to handle every day of their lives. The only way to ensure that this happens is if we treat each sex crime as an intention to rape and thus should always be treated as a felony.
When a guilty party gets to walk away with little to no punishment, a misdemeanor for their crime, it only makes their abusive power grow as well as their anger toward the victim. This puts those of us who are victimized in a much more dangerous situation.

Out of every 1000 sexual assaults, 230 are reported to the police, 46 reports lead to arrests. Only nine cases are referred to prosecutors, and only 5 cases will lead to a felony conviction. 4.6  rapists will be incarcerated. Where is the other .4% of the person? Repeat offenders may finally get caught, but we need to change these statistics.

Men, women, children, the LGBT community, we all suffer when sex crimes are committed. We all deserve to live without fear of attack. 

Having all sex crimes treated as a felony from the beginning awards the victim many more avenues of protection and far fewer barriers and loopholes leaving them defenseless. I'm writing a bill to introduce to Congress to change the law and make all sex-related crimes a felony and I need your, help. I need your support. I need your strength and your determination. I need you to sign this petition, to share this petition and to help protect those of us who have been harmed, abused, victimized and ignored.

This grassroots project is the foundation needed to get this bill passed. Currently, we stand at a, 30% chance of having any bill passed in law. With your support, we can change our local legislature to ensure a one hundred percent chance this bill gets passed.